Guitarist Tommy Emmanuel to Embark on 10-Date UK Tour, December 2011

Tommy Emmanuel will embark on a 10-date nationwide UK tour from Thursday December 1st at Hull City Hall. Tickets are now on sale from the 24 hour box office: 0871 230 1101 or can be booked online from www.seetickets.com or www.tommyemmanuel.com

Best known for his complex finger-picking style, Emmanuel is an Australian guitarist who performs energetic concerts, and is highly regarded for the use of percussive effects on the guitar. In 2008 and 2010, Guitar Player Magazine's readers' poll named him "Best Acoustic Guitarist."

Throughout his career he has played with many notable artists including Chet Atkins, Eric Clapton, Sir George Martin, Air Supply, John Denver, Les Paul and Doc Watson.

Tommy and his brother Phil performed live in Sydney at the closing ceremony of the Summer Olympics in 2000. The event was televised worldwide with an estimated 2.85 billion viewers.

Tommy has said that even at a young age he was fascinated by Atkins' musical style of playing bass with the thumb and melody parts with the first two or three fingers at the same time. This technique became the basis of Tommy's guitar style.

While Tommy has never had formal music training, his playing ability has won him fans from all over the world. He is known to play percussion parts on the body of his guitar. As a solo performer he never plays to a set list and uses a minimum of effects. He usually completes recordings in one take.

"Tommy Emmanuel's steel-string fretwork is technically dazzling and atmospheric" - Chicago Tribune

Emmanuel frequently uses his left thumb to fret bass notes on the 5th and 6th strings as well as playing chords such as Am and E with just two fingers. He uses a thumb pick mostly, a flat pick or just fingers.

His main guitar is a small-bodied custom Maton EBG808 that is fitted with a pickup and an internal condenser microphone, to which he has given the nickname "Mouse" due to its quieter volume unplugged but massive sound when plugged into an amp. Two of his three main stage guitars, notably his signature TE1 Maton dreadnought, are battered and worn from his excessive playing and percussive techniques on them. He once stated that all three of his stage guitars have been broken and repaired numerous times over the years.

As a young man in Australia, Tommy wrote to his hero Chet Atkins in Nashville. Eventually Atkins replied with words of encouragement and a longstanding invitation to drop by to visit.

In 1997, Emmanuel and Atkins recorded as a duo and released the album "The Day Finger Pickers Took over the World," which was also to be Atkins' last recorded album before he died in 2001. In 1998, a year after the album was released it won Best Country Instrumental Album at the Nashville Music Awards.

"Blessed with impeccable taste and exceptional technique, he's able to perform folk, rock, jazz, country and blues with fluid ease and impressive authority." - San Diego Union Tribune

In July 1999, at the 15th Annual Chet Atkins Appreciate Society Convention, Chet presented Tommy with a Certified Guitar Player award, an honor Atkins has bestowed on other guitarists. This award gains its fame from being bestowed by Atkins himself, a widely recognized leader in guitar music. The award states: "In Recognition of his Contributions to the Art of Fingerpicking." Tommy performs at the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society in July each year in Nashville.

"Tommy is about the only guitarist I've heard," said Chet Atkins, "who can come close to what Lenny Breau did with harmonics, and he's got a style all his own. I think he's probably the greatest finger-picker in the world today. He's inventive, fearless and has a flawless sense of rhythm. He's a great showman, too."

Emmanuel's duet with Chet Atkins, "Smokey Mountain Lullaby," was nominated for the 1998 Grammy award for Country Instrumental Performance. In 2006, Emmanuel received his second Grammy award nomination for Best Country Instrumental Performance for "Gameshow Rag."

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